Word.ws English Dictionary

burning daylight

burning daylight is the present participle and gerund of burn daylight.

Meaning of burn daylight

Verb

burn daylight (third-person singular simple present burns daylight, present participle burning daylight, simple past and past participle burned daylight or burnt daylight)

  1. (intransitive) To use artificial light during the daytime when one could simply use the sunlight.
    • O, Madam, no candles yet, I beseech you ; don't let us burn daylight.1819, Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, page 364
  2. (idiomatic, intransitive) To waste time.
    • Mercutio. Come, we burn daylight, ho! Romeo. Nay, that's not so. Mercutio. I mean, sir, in delay. We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.1595, William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Questions about burning daylight

What is burning daylight the present participle and gerund of?
Burning daylight is the present participle and gerund of burn daylight.

Words near burning daylight in the dictionary

  1. burning bars
  2. burning bread
  3. burning bush
  4. burning bushes
  5. burning coal
  6. burning daylight
  7. burning down
  8. burning feet syndrome
  9. burning glass
  10. burning glasses
  11. burning hot

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: burning daylight (page history and authors); burn daylight (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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